Paralyzed, and stranded far from home

Diego Piedrahita remembers getting up from the lounge chair. He remembers standing at the edge of the pool. He remembers diving. Then he remembers waking up.

Now the 26-year-old Dongan Hills man lies paralyzed in a hospital bed in his native Colombia, 2,300 miles away from a life forever changed because the water was too shallow that day.

All he wants to do is go home.

And his sister, Diana Fiore, is desperately trying to get him there.

"We don't have a lot of money," said Mrs. Fiore, 31, who created www.helpdiego.com from her New Jersey home to raise money for the mounting medical bills her brother's insurance won't cover and for a medical flight home they simply can't afford.

Last month, Piedrahita, who was visiting his aunt and cousin in the family's hometown of Medellin, dove into a public pool that had been drained of some of its water.

His neck was broken.

He was airlifted to a local hospital which refused treatment because he didn't have the ability to pay. By the time his mother, Luz Piedrahita, arrived from their Dongan Hills home on June 10, her son was in septic shock.

She had him transferred to Pablo Tobon Uribe Hospital in Medellin, where his medical bills exceed $30,000. A medical flight home, with a doctor and specialized equipment, will cost another $7,500.

So far Mrs. Fiore has raised about $3,500.

She was told Medicaid won't cover her brother's care because his injuries were sustained abroad. She called the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, but all they could do was provide her with the names of medical air escort services. She's contacted dozens of charities.

"Nobody will help," said Mrs. Fiore, who is balancing her brother's medical needs with new motherhood. Two months ago, just around the time her brother left for Colombia, she gave birth to her daughter, Angela.

"He couldn't wait to be an uncle," she said.

Piedrahita was around 4 or 5 when his parents moved to Dongan Hills after making the decision to give their family, which also includes brother Nelson, 22, and sister Vanessa, 16, a better life in the United States.

He graduated from Egbert Intermediate School in Midland Beach and New Dorp High School. Recently, he was fired from his job as a home-health attendant because an asthma attack prevented him from showing up for work.

"That's why he went over there," Mrs. Fiore said. "He was having a hard time getting a new job. Before he left he was looking into going to school to become a paramedic. He's very service-oriented. He always wants to help everybody."

His sister didn't want him to go to Colombia at all.

"I didn't know he left," she said. "I always get scared of going there because they have so much violence. It's not a place to go on vacation, but he insisted."

Now he insists on coming home.

"He thinks with the right therapy, he'll get better," Mrs. Fiore said. "He doesn't know he may never walk again."